This invention generally relates to an apparatus for dispensing particulate materials, and more specifically, to an apparatus for dispensing a composition of course and fine particles.
Various food commodities, such as several cereal products, consist of a blend or mixture of coarse and fine particles. For example, some cereals include flakes having a range of sizes, and some of these flakes may be quite small while others may be comparatively large. Other cereals include sugar coated, puffed or flakes; and during handling and processing, small sugar particles may become separated from the much large flakes. These food products are often packaged by filling a large dispensing device with a bulk quantity of the commodity, and dispensing or feeding small quantities of the bulk mixture through a funnel that forms a bottom or lower portion of the dispensing device, into small, individual packages that are then prepared for sale to the consumer.
Prior art processes and apparatuses are known for dispensing food commodities of above-described type generally produce excellent results. However, difficulties are occasionally encountered with these prior art arrangements. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,883 entitled "Blending Apparatus For Bulk Solids", the ingredients of the bulk composition tend to segregate from each other as they are poured into and subsequently passed downward through the dispensing device. Typically, the fine particles tend to collect in the center of the dispensing device, while the coarse particles tend to collect toward the sides of that device. Moreover, when the bulk composition is discharged from the dispensing device, initially product from the center of the device tends to flow out faster than product from the sides of the dispensing device. As a result, the food materials fed into the individual small packages do not always have the most preferred proportion of the different particulate ingredients. A similar result can be obtained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,342 in which a device is used for controlling the flow of particulate solid material through a bin having an internal hopper with inner and outer tapered surfaces which in this case requires a central channel and multiple segregated peripheral channels. These multiple channels can provide additional problems of particulate segregation in view of the variable flow of solids in each of the multiple channels.
One solution for the above problem has been defined in copending application U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 861,478 filed May 9, 1986, which is assigned to the same assignee as is the present application, entitled "Apparatus For Dispensing A Blended Composition Of A Particulate Ingredient" wherein a conical plug is located in an apparatus similar to that of U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,883 to prevent a segregation of the individual materials of the mixture prior to the packaging step.
Also, on occasion, the particles will become jammed in the dispensing device. This interferes with the regular filling of the individual packages, and often an appreciable amount of time and effort is required by an operator to restart the flow of the food materials from the dispensing device. In addition, some of the coarse particles break apart as they pass through the dispensing device. As a result, over time, the proportion of coarse particles in the composition being discharged from the dispensing device may decrease while the proportion of fine particles in that composition may increase.